A Three Day Weekend in the Fishing Doldrums
Day 1: kids fishing only. LMB and sunnies. I broke down and outfitted these boys with spinning rods. Given the “automatic” nature of these rigs, James is able to stand alone, cast, retrieve, catch fish. He’s becoming deeply intrigued with the various fish, how big they get, what they eat, etc. I stand about 20 feet away and watch him, occasionally casting a little jig out for Danny and then handing him the rod. It is highly enjoyable to watch the rod tip dip and see a face light up. One of my multiple gripes regarding spinning gear though is the size of the hooks that are typically available: too big. And the barbs are huge. For a kid, you want a hook that can easily fit in a sunfish mouth. That was why these guys enjoyed flipping little BH nymphs over the past few years: any fish can eat them. With these jigs though, the fish pound away at the #6 hook but can’t ingest it. Anyway: thinking I’ll make some droppers using little BHs. That should be deadly. James caught a 10” LMB on the first cast he made with his new rod. Proceeded to catch three more from this pond. Ended the day taking a night tour of Whitewater State Park.

Day 2: fishing solo. Every July and August I’m reminded that these months can be worse than winter. Hotter than hell. Thick vegetation everywhere. No good bugs coming off. Sure you can make it work. But it’s still the doldrums around here, when compared to every other month of the year. I can honestly say that January 2011 was better trout fishing than what I got on Sunday. It was fine. Fish were where you’d expect to find them. Figure I landed maybe 14-15 nice BNT. I take it back it was slightly better than fine. It was indeed a Sunday and I never saw another person. Blue ribbon water and not a person in sight. I take it back I did run into a family right as I pulled up: the young son was lining his fly rod. They said their goal was to get him into fish on flies. They had hopper patterns but no nymphs so I gave them a selection. Twenty inches of tippet I said, but they had no tippet. I told them to cut a piece of mono from one of their spinning rigs. Such mono could only hope for such a valiant application I thought to myself but did not share out loud. But after that: no one. Walked downstream and quickly realized that was garbage. In July you need to be in the water. For three reasons: stay cool, make it possible to actually move your feet forward without wrapping yourself up in vegetation, and keep yourself from finding the next day myriad welts and itches from what I refer to generally as “chiggers.” A common school of thought is “stay out of the stream” so you don’t spook the fish. That’s well and good but abandoned by me in hot summer months. In the water is good. Turned around and headed upstream. I was hoping for hopper action. Tried it. Kept nervously switching between terrestrials and nymphs. Tried some standard dry flies. Nothing going until maybe 9 AM. Two nice browns erupted on a black hopper pattern tied by WFF. Assassination attempts. Completely out of the water. The rest of the day was standard stuff: nymphs and streamers in good water produced fish. I took a creel of perfect-for-frying-pan BNT: limit of five. The only other notable fish was one that came from the highly desirable slot marked by the red dot below. I walked past this water and noted it: not deep, but a great grass overhang. You figure a fish wants to feel safe; it can do so by going deep in a pool, or by getting under something. This water was maybe 8-9 inches deep. But on my way out I stopped and put one cast of a tandem rig at the top of that little riffle and before I could even track anything a BNT of maybe 12-13 inches cleared the water straight up 4 feet airborne in agitated fashion. Geez. Nice. So maybe not the worst day afterall.

Day 3: James fishing only while Danny and I swam in the pond. He was wet-wading up to his waist, and tirelessly casting a little jig and twister tail. Caught a LMB and sunfish. I offered to help him remove the hook from the LMB, and he said calmly: I don’t need any help. I already know everything about fishing. Hehe. Well that’s that. He’s clearly into it and I think the spinning gear was a good move. Promotes independence and allows a kid to go at his own rate. He wants to go fishing tonight.

Some carp were looked in on over the weekend, by me solo and one morning with James. He forgot his shoes, so he did a little carping in socks for 2.5 hours. It was the typical MN carping garbage: sweat our asses off hoping and praying that we’ll find some fish. Plowing through weeds and tripping on rocks. Finding just enough activity to keep us plowing. Getting one shot a feeding fish from 30 feet away and not hooking up. The carp bar is near the ceiling now, and MN carping is on the floor. I can barely bring myself to do it at this point. I think a guy in SE MN should just trout fish. Then head out a couple times a year for banner carping. The only thing that keeps me moderately interested is the possibility of a 20 lb Mississippi River carp. That would further elevate the Great Lakes / Columbia / Miss triad. I saw one too and put flies on it but I knew in advance it would not eat. Logged one redhorse.

July. August. Doldrums. We need something dynamic here, like James getting a big LMB or maybe a trout. Or a 20 lb carp. Etc. The need is there. Probably no more trout fishing until an early morning trico session comes along.